MediaTek is gaining ground quickly in the fast-growing markets for smartphone applications processors and baseband processors, but Qualcomm continues to dominate. During the third quarter, MediaTek had 10% of the processor market and 12% of the baseband market, according to Strategy Analytics, while Qualcomm had more than 50% of both markets.
The firm’s research shows the market for smartphone processors growing 31% in the third quarter to reach $4.9 billion. Qualcomm had a 53% share, followed by Apple with 18% and MediaTek with 10%.
Today MediaTek is holding a media event in California to promote what it calls “the world’s first true octa-core processor,” the MT6592. Samsung is the only other company to launch an eight core processor to date, and that chip does not use all eight cores at once. MediaTek says its processor spreads the workload over all eight cores when needed, and saves battery life by going down to just one core for “lightweight tasks.”
“It’s the first chip where you have the capability to independently manage each of the eight cores,” said Johan Lodenius, MediaTek’s chief marketing officer. He said the chip’s performance is in line with that of higher-priced processors.
“We will have a better price than Qualcomm, with the same performance,” said Lodenius. “We have caught up with them on performance and we are ahead on power management.”
MediaTek is also making strides in the baseband processor market, which Strategy Analytics says was equal in size to the processor market in Q3. Both markets generated an estimated $4.9 billion, but the baseband market grew just 10% year-on-year, versus 31% for the applications processor market. MediaTek holds second place in this market with a 12% share, but Qualcomm dominates with a 66% share.
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